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know none of this is your fault. That’s the really crappy part about situations like this—the innocent person is the one who suffers. You didn’t know Eddie was selling drugs. None of us did. Granted, I’d hazard a guess your friends wondered if something was wrong because of the way you pulled away.”
    “They all hated Eddie, and they’d never even met him.” Tristan sighed, then shifted his gaze down and wriggled his toes nervously. “That should have been a clue. And the way he kept making up excuses about why he couldn’t meet my friends and then kept coming up with reasons why I should spend more time with him.” Tristan wrapped his arms around his body as a chill raced up his spine. “I should have seen it.”
    “You were in love with him. They don’t say love is blind for no reason. It can be wonderful, but love can make us fail to see what’s right under our noses because we don’t want to see it.”
    Tristan opened his mouth to protest.
    “I’m not saying you did anything wrong. You didn’t. All I’m saying is that you were in love, and Eddie used that against you. He must have known how you felt, and he twisted that to his advantage. The slimy bastard.”
    Tristan couldn’t argue with the last part of that assessment. “I always thought I was a good judge of character. Now I second-guess everything.”
    “Nothing has changed, except that in the future you’ll be more careful and probably more circumspect. But don’t stop being yourself. That’s the worst thing you could do. Eddie is a complete shit, but if you let him change who you are, he wins. There are plenty of people who are behind you, don’t forget that, and they’re behind you because they care about you. The real you.” Harry paused, and Tristan wondered if this conversation wasn’t a little deep for five in the morning. “That’s worth a lot. Sometimes it takes months or years before you get to know the real person, and when you do, you find out they don’t like you… or want something from you that you can’t give… or whatever. But you have friends who know you and love you. That’s why they were worried when you were seeing Eddie—because they cared.”
    The expression on Harry’s face told Tristan, even in his sleep-deprived and worked-up state, that maybe Harry didn’t have those kinds of friends. “The guys are… I don’t know… they’re the guys. I always thought of us like that Sex in the City show, but with gay guys instead of girls. I saw that show a few times, and they always seemed like such good friends. That’s like the four of us. Zach and Jeremy have… husbands, I guess, but the four of us are still just as close.” He smiled. “I used to think everyone had friends like that.”
    “They don’t,” Harry said softly and then yawned. Tristan got the idea the yawn was fake. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Harry turned and went back into his room. Tristan went back to his room and got into bed. This time he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew, light was pouring in through the windows. He groaned and rolled over, trying to go back to sleep. It didn’t work, and after glancing at the clock, he pushed back the covers and got up. He had an hour until he had to be at the restaurant for his shift as a waiter, and he couldn’t afford to be late. He got up and checked the hall before bolting across to the bathroom. Grateful for Harry’s generosity, he found the things he needed and took a shower and shaved. Then he pulled on the sweatpants he’d slept in and did his best to skitter back to his room.
    “Are you in a hurry?” Harry asked, coming out of his room.
    Tristan nodded and wished he’d pulled on his T-shirt so he wasn’t so exposed under Harry’s intense gaze.
    “Let me get dressed, and I can take you to your place and then to work,” Harry said.
    “That’s okay. I can get to work if you drop me off at the apartment.”
    Harry paused. “What if